Vladimir Putin vowed to ‘finish off’ Ukraine while standing aboard a brand new Russian nuclear submarine during a visit to an Arctic naval base yesterday.
Speaking to submariners, Putin smugly declared: ‘Not long ago I said we’d grind [Ukraine] down — now it looks like we’ll finish them off.
He also mocked the state of the British economy and armed forces after Sir Keir Starmer and French President Emmanuel Macron revealed yesterday they would deploy an Anglo-French ‘reassurance force’ to Ukraine following a ceasefire deal.
‘[Britain] is jumping on us, behaving aggressively… but their economy is, I think, in the ninth or tenth place in the world,’ the Russian President smirked.
‘Hence the armed forces – what is it, 170,000 or 180,000? That’s all the armed forces of the UK!’
The Kremlin chief’s comments reflect his growing confidence in the fate of his war in Ukraine, not least because the United States – previously one of Kyiv’s most consequential allies – is now holding Volodymyr Zelensky over a barrel.
Putin’s comments to submariners yesterday came as he explored the depths of the submarine Arkhangelsk, named after the Russian city.
He also officially launched a new nuclear submarine – named the ‘Perm’ after a city in the Ural mountains – from the port of Murmansk.
The Perm is the sixth submarine in Russia’s Yasen and Yasen-M classes built by the Sevmash shipyard near Murmansk – but it is believed to be Russia’s first nuclear-powered submarine to carry hypersonic Zircon missiles as standard issue.
These fearsome projectiles have a reported range of 900 kilometres (560 miles) and their speed renders them very difficult to defend against.
Meanwhile, Russia’s armed forces continued to batter targets across Ukraine with drone strikes overnight, even as Ukraine and the US push for a partial ceasefire to avoid further attacks on energy infrastructure and Black Sea shipping assets.
